Joseph Kopser and Bret Boyd, Catalyst: Leadership and Strategy in a Changing World (Seattle, Washington: Amazon Digital Services LLC, 2018). 306 pp. $9.99 (eBook) ISBN 978‐1‐5445‐1014‐9; $15.99 (paperback), ISBN 978‐1‐5445‐1015‐6

• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Author: Leonard L. Lira
• Date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13344

Book Reviews 169

Reviewed by: Leonard L. Lira

San Jose State University

Joseph Kopser and Bret Boyd, Catalyst: Leadership and Strategy

in a Changing World (Seattle, Washington: Amazon Digital

Services LLC, 2018). 306 pp. $9.99 (eBook) ISBN 978-1-

5445-1014-9; $15.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-5445-1015-6

There is an old adage that applies in public

administration, “The only constant is

change.” However, after reading Joseph

Kopser’s and Bret Boyd’s book, you learn that even

change is changing. In fact, the speed of change is

accelerating more rapidly now than it was during

the last 117 years, which was the lifespan of Violet

Brown, the oldest person alive at the time when

the authors were writing the book. The authors

use Ms. Brown as an example to begin their book

and demonstrate their point. They contend that,

while Ms. Brown witnessed radical changes over her

lifetime, one of the author’s youngest daughters,

Piper, witnessed more change in half the time.

Through the rest of their book, they describe change

and how organizational leaders can manage it by

employing the concept of Catalyst.

Kopser and Boyd’s purpose in using the catalyst

metaphor is to help the reader identify the

technological and socioeconomic catalysts that public

and private organizations are facing. In short, Kopser’s

and Boyd’s argument has two parts. First, while

change is constant, not all change is equal. Unlike

evolutionary or incremental change, transformative

change, the type that substantially alters the structure

of the global system on which industries, societies,

and governments are built, is the true catalyst that

moves the world into the future. Furthermore, the

pace of change is increasing. During Ms. Brown’s

lifetime, truly transformative change was a “once-in-

a-century” occurrence. When she lived through the

twentieth century, it maybe occurred once in a decade.

However, during Piper’s lifetime, organizations have

faced rapid transformative change in shorter and

shorter cycles.

Second, leaders are also ultimately the catalyst within

their organization. As the authors state, “Leaders drive

change within organizations. Companies and public

institutions do not transform themselves”(2018, 10).

Leaders who fail to predict and react accordingly to

pending catalytic change put their organizations at a

disadvantage. To demonstrate this, the authors include

examples of Presidents and Chief Executive Officers of

industries during the nineteenth century who missed

the implications of the rise of the personal computer,

streaming media content on demand, and the utility and

potential of a weirdly named company’s (hint: Google)

internet search engine.

The authors also describe public organizations missing

the proverbial boat. For example, the designers and

implementers of the U.S. gasoline tax, which was meant

to have drivers pay for the infrastructure they use,

did not recognize the implications of car companies

building fuel-efficient cars using the latest technologies.

Thus, with automobiles using less gasoline per mile,

there was less funding to maintain the increasing costs

of the nation’s roadway infrastructure. Examples such

as these support the authors’ argument for how change

works and how organizational leaders can respond to

and manage that change.

The authors, Joseph Kopser and Bret Boyd, are

military veterans who both served several years in

Leonard L. Lira teaches courses in public

management, public budgeting, and

organization theory for the MPA program at

San Jose State University. His research and

teaching focus is on organizational theory

and public management. He received his

MPA from Syracuse University in 2003 and

his PhD in Public Administration from the

University of Kansas in 2016.

Email: leonard.lira@sjsu.edu

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 1, pp. 169–171. © 2021 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13344.